Healthcare industry communication and workflow challenges occur because that ecosystem consists of multiple devices, systems, and vendors that must communicate with multiple protocols spanning a wide variety of endpoints. Think about hospitals, labs, insurance, clinics, etc. – each with their own chosen system of sending and receiving that are, most often, unique. It is a highly fragmented environment that forces participants to communicate in multiple protocols that are not compatible with each other. This adds significant complexity, cost, effort and capital outlay with no guarantee that messages will actually reach their destination.
Many of these care settings have different communication systems, platforms, workflows. devices, systems and protocols spanning a wide variety of endpoints. Think about the information flow from hospitals, labs, insurance, clinics, etc. using communication platforms that are unique to their segment. It is a highly fragmented environment that forces participants to communicate in multiple protocols that are not compatible with each other. This adds significant complexity, cost, effort and capital outlay with no guarantee that messages will actually reach their destination.
The central problem arises from the multiple message protocols (HL7, FHIR, Direct Trust messages, ScriptStandard), and the lack of a standard routing framework (in banking you have SWIFT codes and routing numbers, in healthcare no such equivalent exists), that have not been adopted, and difficulty finding patient records since we don’t have one medical number (in banking we use the social security number) There are also many different EHR systems with many different software versions, and the list goes on. If you send a message, you have no assurance that it got there, and if you receive a message, you have to go through many steps to attach it to the right platform and patient. On the receiving side, that same message may be in a format their system may not be able to recognize. Across that messy environment, fax is the embedded common denominator that verifies delivery, is highly secure, includes complete originating information and is HIPAA compliant. Our position as the leading provider of digital cloud fax technology offers an important advantage in establishing relationships in the sector, proving the reliability of our service, demonstrating the security of our system and our commitment to high service levels.
The healthcare industry is also a highly regulated industry that has strict communication rules regarding treating patients and interoperability. While the industry today uses point solutions, new rules recently passed into law (The 21st Century Cures Act) are requiring new protocols to prevent the blockage of information. That is putting additional pressure on the industry to establish a routing framework that effectively forces participants, creating point to point connections, to ensure security and authenticity and encourage the use of standards such as HL7 and FHIR. HL7 messages, as an example, need an HL7 vendor, then they need a direct connection to their target; and finally - need to have a message translator (interface) to take incoming messages over that connection and structure them to be consumed by their system (e.g. the receiving system is Epic 12.2.4 and the message came from Cerner 10.8.0). That would let one hospital speak with one other hospital. Repeat that for every hospital, lab, pharmacy, nursing home, clinic etc. that a single hospital shares information with. A large hospital can easily have hundreds of interfaces, each running different software, and requiring software maintenance expense, sitting in a data center that costs money running on servers that consume capital dollars and managed by an expensive IT staff. Complicating things further, when that Cerner system that communicates with the Epic system upgrades to v11.0.0, the interface breaks. Worse, when our example hospital upgrades to Epic 12.4 they ALL break. Finally, now that they have their HL7 interfaces, they need to go and select their DirectTrust secure messaging vendor (think of a healthcare specific secure email system), a vendor that supports FHIR, and they need to build new interfaces etc. The cost and complexity are staggering.
Consensus, as a result of our established Digital Cloud Fax network, has many established connections with hospitals, labs, pharmacies, health plans etc. and is a natural hub. Second, our secure, scalable cloud architecture eliminates the need for installed software and associated costs. Third, the Consensus product suite can deliver across the spectrum of protocols, allowing healthcare stakeholders to have a single vendor to manage. One single connection Consensus, with our wide range of verified endpoints offering every major healthcare communication protocol, eliminates the need for all those interfaces. No other company is addressing the interoperability opportunity with this approach. We are unique in capabilities, well penetrated because of our position in fax and a known quantity in terms of service, security, and reliability. Scale gives us a large cost advantage, our modern architecture allows fast product deployment as new technologies emerge and, as a public company, Consensus eliminates the risk associated with so many small private single-point vendors in the space. With single-point vendors slugging it out to displace each other in a one-protocol paradigm, administrative costs in healthcare continue to skyrocket. We solve that simply, elegantly, reliably, securely and at a fair price.
EXAMPLE: Demo of Consensus Clarity: Consensus Clarity - How it Works in 30 Seconds